New York Times Article: The Oops in the ‘O’ for Oregon

By: Isolde Raftery

Published: November 17, 2011

The Oregon players Josh Huff, center, and Eric Dungy, right, are filling their foreign language requirement by taking sign language.

If this makes some Ducks players blush, it is because many of them chose sign language to fulfill their foreign language requirement, and in sign language, the fans are saying — screaming, really — the word vagina.

Twenty-nine players on the team are enrolled in the university’s American Sign Language program. Their teacher delights in telling them the true meaning of the sign when they form a spade-shaped “O” with their hands.

 “I did the ‘O’ once, and I never did it again,” said LaMichael James, the team’s star running back, who recently injured his right elbow. When discussing this, James spoke quietly so that those nearby would not hear. He would not make the sign. His elbow hurt, he demurred.

Older players recommended the sign language course, players said, because they found it engaging and intuitive — they had grown up using different signing systems on the field. A few players said sign language was a welcome alternative to Spanish, which had been a struggle in high school.

“A lot of people stereotype us and think we’re just sitting around and not doing anything,” said Dewitt Stuckey, a senior linebacker and second-year sign language student. “But in this class you have to pay attention. If not, you get completely lost.”

Stuckey, who said he wants to be a college counselor at a junior college, signed as he spoke. “It’s kind of rude for us not to sign when we talk,” he explained, motioning across the room to his teacher, Valentino Vasquez, who is deaf.

Another player mentioned Derrick Coleman, a running back at U.C.L.A., who is deaf. In fact, in 2009, Deafdigest.net, an online news source for the deaf community, counted at least 76 deaf and hard-of-hearing students who played in the N.C.A.A. Thirty-nine of them played for Division I teams.

Larson plans to tell her students that Gallaudet, a leading institution for the deaf in Washington, claims to have originated the football huddle. The story goes that on a blustery day in 1894, the team’s star player, Paul Hubbard, suspected that someone on the opposing team could read their signs and was anticipating their plays. Hubbard called for his teammates to form a circle. The huddle, at least in this version of its origin, was born.

Larson talks about football with her students in part because the sport is important in deaf culture, but also because she wants to reach the athletes. She first noticed large numbers of football players four years ago, when sign language was approved for the undergraduate foreign language requirement. Read the full article here.